I believe that sometimes you have to look reality in the eye and deny it.

Garrison Keillor

It’s getting hard to think of anything to say. At least, if you’re me, it is. The crawlspace of history is littered with flotsam, that much is obvious. But how to articulate a meaningful algorithm that results in a few photons bouncing onto the slick surface of the beast we call culture? Such a task is about as easy as copulating with a football. To complicate matters, our so-called age of Information is, in actuality, sprinkled with so much noise as to resemble an obese blast of nonsensical flatulence, ad nauseum.

Any fool with one finger and a keyboard can now become the Blogger of the Weak, catapulting their idiosyncratic cosmology into the chorus of static, formally-known-as-the airwaves. As a key-punch cowboy myself, I know how the game is played. Notwithstanding deadlines, the trick to filling a page with banal chatter isn’t much harder than finding an old Sid Caesar re-run on that bastion of modern art: YouTube. (Hermits like me tend to lag behind the times, but I’m surprised there aren’t more anatomical jokes about YouTube. Get busy!)

Seen from the right angle [no pun], the Dimformation Age is about as earth shattering as a sesame seed bun. One can easily make the argument that our quaint hunter-gatherer ancestors were considerably more in tune with relevant information than we are. That includes our plethora of mega-nerds, hunched over whiz-bang gigahertz-powered laptops, hacking their way into the bowels of a creepy sim-life created by another cabal of nerds in East Singapore.

"One life at a time, please," to quote Edward Abbey, echoing H. D. Thoreau. Somebody bring the lifeboat; abandon ship before we all end up as footnotes in the credits of Titanic - the anime remake!

Back to square: Those few hardy souls who’ve suffered through my previous columns probably know more about me than I do. Which isn’t saying much. If you’ve followed my thread, you’ll recall that we’ve sloshed our way into the pithy issues of over-population, global meltdown, consumeritis, mall fever, Neanderthal genetics, the failure of the 2 party system (pass the Bud!), and my personal favorite: Surfing on the roof of dad’s car at 60mph (when gas cost 35 cents a gallon).

Now what? Is there anything left to say that other more intelligent pundits haven’t covered in considerably finer detail? Hell yes - let’s get started…………

I recently received an e-mail from a friend who’s convinced that the years 2008 and 1968 are cosmic twins, hinged at the hip, so to speak, by the glue of my favorite liberal buzzword: Revolution.

Of course, to engage in revolutionary behavior means different things to different revolutionaries; but it’s apparent that the current translation of the word, at least in political parlance, is "to oppose whatever passes for the minions of the status quo, since it was those bastards who created our current pickle of a world."

Hence, at least one Presidential candidate has banked his entire career, and the future of our nation, on the deep philosophical stratagem of "change." Wave that freak flag and holler Change! Ah, I feel the ground moving beneath my feet. (Of course, those vibrations are the cumulative effect of 12 million Chinese bulldozers rushing to erect the world’s most explosive economy - and military.)

Most redneck Taoists, such as myself, fully comprehend that change is a frigging automatic pile driver, like it or not. When I’m elected, every child in America will be handed a copy of Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching and a free ticket to Big Trouble in Little China, starring Kurt Russell. Within a week’s time, America’s kids will know more about the vicissitudes of the Universe than the entire ensemble of bureaucrats currently ensconced in our nation’s capitol.

But only a nitwit bets the ranch on impermanence. Smart money refrains from throwing down on change for the sake of change (another off-brand definition of the cancer cell). No, ladies and gents, the wise ask for a taste before ordering a $50 bottle of wine described as tasting of "blackberries, lemon zest, and sweaty saddle leather."

Let’s engage in one of my favorite pastimes: Jump cutting.

The new and exciting Green Routine is no longer about biology/ecology; it’s about technology. As the hippies were co-opted by the Captains of Commerce, so were the eco-freaks. It’s the standard of living that counts: growth&progress forever. Same ole game, different underwear.

The Times Online, a key player in the InterNoise, hosts numerous pages devoted to "Business, careers, & the environment." My joyous self was irresistibly drawn to this dazzling headline: "Who will save our planet?" Of course, the site’s resident experts, anxious to avert the pernicious effects of global warming, admonish the scientific community to ally with politicians in hopes of hashing out an enlightened policy designed to save us all from ourselves. Myopia rules the day, here in the Land of iPods and dime-a-dozen junkie pop stars. But, what can you expect from a species that can’t out maneuver naked chimpanzees in basic short-term memory skills?

How about this for enlightened policy: "Free condoms for everybody!" Planet saved. Next?

Haven’t you heard - unless we act now, the Planet is in danger of dying! The wave of hysteria rippling through the collective unconscious over the mere mention of global warming is about as goofy as the current Presidential campaign (but not quite). Let’s get something straight: Homo erectus asphaltus, as genetically twisted as we are, have somewhere on the order of zero chance of killing the planet. The joint may get hotter than a habanero meatball, resulting in a ghastly matrix of calamitous mojo - but planetary death is little more than a fanciful dream in the noggin of some Los Angeles pseudo-scientist with an overdose of nerd juice for brains.

Ah - what a relief. Now that I’ve gotten the planet’s karma off my back, we can mosey on to something seriously ugly: The Economy!

Have you noticed how stupid things have become during the last few years? Would any two-bit businessman in a shabby gray flannel suit with one megahertz of neurological processing power actually issue a mortgage to someone with no credit, no money down, and no questions asked? As it turns out: Of course they would; and we’re here to witness the withering results. As Mudd’s Third Law of Demented Possibilities illustrates, the inevitable result of repetitive dumb-ass behavior is, to borrow a Wall Street term: Deep Dollar Doo-doo. Welcome to the Dimformation Age!

It’s hard to take self-inflicted meltdown seriously. You make a cake with battery acid instead of sugar, the cake is going to taste like battery acid, n’est pas? Where’s Alan Greenspan when you need him?

Anybody over 13 has lived long enough to have seen some crazy behavior emanating from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. But the evolving "sub-prime mortgage" crisis is about as imbecilic as primates can get. Who are we kidding? Handing money to a dude with cat litter for brains and no discernable credit is a tad more sordid than the words ""sub-prime"" allude to. It’s easy to imagine Alfred E. Neuman’s portrait dangling from the walls of the nearest mortgage broker, the words "What, me worry?" flashing in 12 colors of neon as the ink dries on yet another bad loan.

Am I the only one who thinks a few financial sector CEOs need a free vacation to a Federal work camp? Maybe the old saw "Justice is blind" has taken on a whole new meaning in these days of "The buck doesn’t stop here; it never stops!"

Here’s the economic skinny in a freaking nutshell: Don’t buy what you can’t afford. That’s as true for the nation as it is for you and me. The important thing to remember is that 99% of the stuff relentlessly shoved down our gullible throats as the latest ""must haves"" is actually bullshit in a (Chinese) plastic wrapper. In this case, ignorance is best. Like the wise man mused: Tune out, turn off, and drop debt.

Like I said, it’s getting hard to think up anything to say. So, I’m out of here. If you see me barreling down the proverbial Highway in a sleek red convertible, the radio squealing a raunchy tune from the ancient era of real music, don’t forget to flash me the one finger salute.

Salut!